Influencer admits her obsession with 'wellness' turned into an eating disorder

A wellness influencer has revealed that her obsession with promoting a healthy lifestyle online left her battling with an eating disorder.

Lee Tilghman, known online as 'Lee From America', has more than 335,000 Instagram followers and rose to internet fame by promoting wellness and healthy living, regularly posting about her own healthy choices.

From food, to the environment, to her own sense of self, Tilghman was constantly sharing positive messages about health across her platforms, but now she has revealed that behind the scenes she was struggling.

"In January 2019… I was the unhealthiest I had ever been," Tilghman wrote in a blog post revealing she had been struggling with the eating disorder orthorexia.

Orthorexia sees suffers become obsessed with eating 'healthy', usually to the detriment of their actual health. Symptoms associated with orthorexia include compulsively checking nutritional information and cutting out food groups, but within the online wellness community these behaviours are normal.

"I wanted no bloat, no inflammation, no stress, the best sleep, and I needed total access to my healthy list of 'okay' foods - primarily, no processed sugar, no gluten, no dairy, no soy, etc. etc. etc…just to feel good," Tilghman wrote of her own experience.

"A major drive behind this way of living was to be my best self, but also, it was a way of controlling and managing my weight. I was terrified of gaining weight."

Explaining that she became obsessed with her appearance and physical health, Tilghman's mental health fell to the wayside as she constantly strove to be the perfect version of herself she was presenting online, but in January it fell apart.

She returned to Instagram in June but has only now revealed the reason for her five month absence, and though she is now in recovery, Tilghman knows she can't return to the wellness culture she used to promote.

"A diet for me will 100000% end with an eating disorder and a preoccupation with food," she confessed.

Tilghman also took aim at the wellness community that helped her rise to fame, writing that the culture can be "damaging in its own way" and is "fuelled by fatphobia."

"[Wellness culture can have] a disregard for mental health and a preoccupation with physical health, economic privilege, unrealistic body ideals and body discrimination."

Now she plans to revamp her social media presence to talk more about her own experience with eating disorders, diet culture and other issues she's passionate about as she moves away from wellness content.

If you, or someone you know, are struggling with an eating disorder, you can find help, support and resources through The Butterfly Foundation: 1800 33 4673.